^12 (A)How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? ¹³ Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them ^[a]heads over you.’ ¹⁴ And you answered me and said, ‘The thing which you have told us to do is good.’ ¹⁵ So I took ^(B)the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and ^[b]made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.

¹⁶ “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and ^(C)judge righteously between a man and his ^(D)brother or the stranger who is with him. ^17 (E)You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for ^(F)the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, ^(G)bring to me, and I will hear it.’